12 February 2013

Buried, and good riddance

I think I've mentioned that the wires that bring electricity up from the river valley to our hamlet are going to be buried. Enterrés. We don't know exactly when the work will be done, but we've signed a set of papers giving our authorization, and a surveyor has been out here several times doing whatever it is that surveyors do.

There are five utility poles in this picture, all around our house.
At least four of them are not long for this world.

We'll benefit from the "undergrounding" in at least two ways. First of all, we should have fewer power outages. Three years ago we went without electricity for four or five days because a tall spindly tree fell on and pulled down the wires, which run up through some woods. A storm had caused power outages all around the region at the time and repairing our wires was given low priority because only nine houses were affected.

This concrete pole on the northwest corner of our property will be taken out.

Then two years ago lightning struck the transformer on the utility pole out behind our house. That time, the electricity was off for only about 36 hours, because it was an isolated incident and the repair crew got here pretty fast.

The pole by the pond, on the right side of the road, will be no more. Bon débarras, as we say.

We'll also benefit from having the wires put underground instead of on poles because at least four ugly utility poles near our house will be removed. You can see some of them in the pictures here.

13 comments:

  1. That will be a huge improvement. It will look so much better. Keep well Diane

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  2. That should be a great improvement all around!

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  3. Great news! Btw, your hedge looks beautiful. The crew did an excellent job and I'm sure Walt is happy to cross off that chore from his annual To Do list.

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  4. i always wondered why they dont bury our lines since we lose power every time there is a slight puff of wind....they keep cutting trees back more & more but there is always another one to take the lines down.....by the time they come out so many times to fix things, they could have shelled out the money to bury the lines ....you're lucky to be rid of the things

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  5. Wish they would consider burying some of our utility wires here too. They are littered all over the island. There is always some talk of burying them after some hurricane damage, but then it gets put on the back burner once again.
    Lucky for you, now your landscape photos will be "pole free."

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  6. No more photoshopping those power lines!

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  7. LOL from Pasadena! Hey, I'm not that much older than YOU!

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  8. I know, I know -- and my birthday is coming up. Have fun in LALA land.

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  9. Oh, how I wish they'd bury the lines in our neighborhood. So ugly!

    Think how much more beautiful your photos will be. :)

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  10. Lucky you that you will be rid of those ugly concrete poles. You didn't mention any cost. Are you getting this done for free? You are indeed lucky if that's the case.
    That last photo has remarkable cloud formations with the light on the horizon.
    What a peaceful and serene vista (I photoshopped the existing poles!)you have.

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  11. You only lost power for a few days. After Hurricane Wilma, we were without power for more than two weeks. Luckily, the weather was great, but we did have to eat out every day and there was only one local restaurant that stayed open.

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  12. Starman, that's why I don't want to live in hurricane country (or earthquake country either...).

    Hi Ginny, a couple of years ago the mayor (our neighbor) asked us for some photos of the vineyard. She didn't want photos that showed the power lines. She was certainly instrumental if getting the undergrounding project off the ground (as it were).

    Diane, Judy, BettyAnn, Melinda, Virginia, Mary... thanks for the good comments.

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